Gay Human Rights Commissioner to Evangelical pastor: you and your family ‘deserve to burn in hell’

SIOUX CITY, IA, July 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – An Evangelical pastor in Sioux City is requesting the removal of a newly-appointed member of the city’s Human Rights Commission because of hateful and threatening comments the official posted to the pastor’s Facebook page in 2010.

Pastor Cary Gordon of Cornerstone World Outreach says that Human Rights Commissioner Scott Raasch, who is homosexual, wrote on Facebook that because Gordon had encouraged voters to toss out three Supreme Court judges whose court order made same-sex “marriage” legal in Iowa, he was a “hater” and a “bigot” and that he should “burn in hell” along with his entire family.

“I advocated for the removal of our state supreme court judges in 2010, because they violated their oaths of office while pretending to be lawmakers, forcing gay ‘marriage’ on our state,” Gordon recounted in a blog post. “Thankfully, a significant majority of Iowa citizens agreed with my advocacy for the rule of law and the restricted jurisdiction of judges and responded by firing the 3 who were up for the Iowa retention vote.”

But Gordon said that while most Iowa voters agreed with Gordon’s stance, “I and my church were continually threatened by parties who disagreed.”

According to Gordon, one such party was Scott Raasch.

“You are haters and bigots and you will get what’s coming to you sooner or later,” Raasch wrote on Gordon’s Facebook page. “I hope you rot in hell.”

Gordon said he answered him with "as much decorum as [he] could muster": “I hope you repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I wouldn’t want you or anyone else to go to hell.”

But Raasch wrote back, “I know Christ and don’t need a snake oil salesman like you to tell me about him. I guess that’s the difference between us because I think there are many people that deserve to burn in hell … including you and your entire family. The sooner the better for our community!”

Said Gordon, “Scott Raasch … gives blatant death wishes to anyone who disagrees with his political or sexual views. He is obviously unstable and filled with raging hatred.” He said that Raasch’s remarks caused his family to fear for their lives.

“I'm sure you can appreciate that remarks like ‘...you will get what's coming to you sooner or later. I hope you rot in hell...’ in conjunction with death wishes for my wife and children, at Christmas, could be considered an imminent threat to do violence,” said Gordon.

He called for Raasch’s immediate removal from the Human Rights Commission.

Raasch admits to posting the comments, and says he was angry when he did it.

“I would like to say that if I caused him or his family any stress, I do apologize for that, as that was not my intention,” Raasch told the Sioux City Journal. “I feel badly about this,” he added. "I don’t want to get off to a bad start. I think I can do a good job on this commission.”

But Gordon disagrees. “Let me be very clear,” Gordon wrote, “[a] man who gives ‘death wishes’ to a local pastor's wife and children at Christmas guarantees an atmosphere where prosecutorial powers of the HRC are likely to become abusive and threatening to people of faith in Sioux City.”

Added Gordon, “Let's hope our City Council will do the right thing and remove Scott Raasch from this unmerited position of authority posthaste.”